


Adventures in Dogsitting

by fabrega



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-04
Updated: 2013-07-04
Packaged: 2017-12-17 15:33:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabrega/pseuds/fabrega
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson has wrangled agents, soldiers, monsters, gods, and Tony Stark; he can undoubtedly handle Clint Barton's dog.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventures in Dogsitting

The joint Avengers-SHIELD team has been away in Latveria for four days longer than anticipated when Phil, at home base in New York, gets a strange text. They're a day or two more from extraction but not in any real danger; it's just slower going than the initial intel had indicated, which means fewer unexpected firefights and more Tony Stark whining directly into the bugs they'd supposedly covertly planted in the makeshift base of operations about when the hell they were getting out of here. They're _supposed_ to be otherwise off the grid, which is why the text Phil receives is such a mystery. It's from a number he doesn't recognize, and it reads: "Phil? Hi. I need a favor for Clint Barton."

It's obviously not a wrong number; it mentions him by name. It's on his work BlackBerry, which nobody outside the organization should have the number for. And there was nobody _inside_ the organization whose number he didn't have who ought to be calling him "Phil".

"What can I do for you?" he texts back, intrigued.

He sits down at a nearby unoccupied computer terminal and taps the phone number into the SHIELD database. It chugs for a second and then brings back a single result, a cell phone belonging to one Katherine Elizabeth Bishop. A few more taps pulls up the young lady's profile, which is very interesting indeed. He's a little surprised that they haven't crossed paths before. As he skims it, a response pops up on his phone. "Any chance you'd be free to dog-sit a few days? Clint's work trip is running long and the current sitter has plans she can't cancel." Twenty seconds later, another message: "Normally I'd do it, but I'm out of town too. Clint left your # for emergencies? Said you have a key." A few more seconds later: "I'm Kate, btw."

Phil wonders if she has any idea who she's texting. The way she's describing the situation is how he'd tell someone's uncle or neighbor about official SHIELD business. And she's right about the keys: SHIELD has a house key on file for every agent, just one more thing they all signed away when they joined. They're really only supposed to use the keys for emergencies--which typically ends up being "classified data cleanup before the authorities and grieving family arrive"--but emergencies, he supposes, come in all shapes and sizes. Besides, who knows how many emergency contacts Ms. Bishop had tried before getting to his number.

"Sure," he texts back, "What do I need to do?"

He gets the details from her over the next few texts. A woman in Barton's building is watching the dog, whose name is apparently "Lucky." Phil is going to stop by mid-afternoon to pick up the dog and stay nights on the sofa until Barton gets back.

He grabs one of his standard overnight bags out of his office and leaves HQ around 1500 hours; he reaches his destination, a shabby apartment building in Brooklyn, a little later than that. He enters the building, holding his bag in front of him as he rides the elevator up to the floor Ms. Bishop had specified for the current dog-sitter. Outside the apartment, he sets his bag down and raps firmly on the door.

A child opens it, a boy of five or six. He looks Phil up and down, taking in his suit and his shoes and the way his hands are clasped easily in front of him. He doesn't take his eyes off Phil as he shouts back into the apartment: "Moooooom! I think we're in trouble!" Phil opens his mouth, to protest or explain, but the child has already gone tearing off.

From his vantage point in the doorway, Phil can't help but scope out the apartment. It's one open space, living room and kitchen and den areas all blurring into each other. It's lived-in, too--a little cluttered, a little worn. All the breakable objects in sight are on high shelves. There is construction paper strewn across the kitchen table and stuck to the fridge with colorful magnets. And in the middle of what is for all intents and purposes the living room floor, there is what appears to be a haphazardly-constructed blanket fort.

A quiet, curious animal noise issues from the blanket fort, followed by a louder admonition: "Shh! Be quiet!"

A woman emerges from deeper in the apartment, followed by and speaking to the child from earlier. "I'm sure we're not in trouble. Did you ask the man what he wanted?" She straightens as she sees Phil, but her pace does not slow; when she gets to the door, she leans against the door frame and asks: "Can I help you?"

Phil extends a hand. "Phil Coulson. I'm here because Clint Barton needs a dog-sitter."

The woman visibly relaxes. "Phil, come in. Kate said you'd be by this afternoon. I'm Simone." She introduces her sons as well: Matthew, the older one, had been the one to answer the door; Henry, the younger one, peers at Phil from under the blanket fort's canopy. As the boy exits the fort, so does a scruffy, one-eyed dog. "And this is Lucky," Simone says. She puts her hand down to scratch behind Lucky's ears, and the dog makes a happy noise.

Phil takes a careful seat on the sofa while Simone retrieves the dog's things. She talks as she goes. "I'm so glad you're able to cover for us for a few days, Phil. Usually there's not a problem with Lucky extending his stay with us for a few days, but we've had this trip for my sister's wedding planned for more than a year now."

"We're going to Pittsburgh!" Matthew announces. "My cousins are going to be there!"

"We're driving to Pittsburgh tomorrow," Simone explains. "You're a life-saver. Usually, between the neighbors, we can cover it--it's the least we can do--but nobody's free. I only called Clint when I couldn't find anyone else."

"'The least you can do'?" Phil asks. Matthew and Henry have plunked down onto the sofa on either side of him and are looking at him curiously.

"With the building and all. He's a good landlord. Most of us would have had to have left if not for him."

Landlord. Okay. That's definitely the kind of thing Barton should have reported to a security officer somewhere. SHIELD undoubtedly knows anyway, somewhere deep in their files, but the principle of the thing stands.

He wonders what the story there is.

Simone has finished gathering everything and has deposited it all in a large, dark purple duffel bag. She hands this to Phil, along with a leash she attaches to Lucky's collar. "Okay," she says, "The vet's number is in here, in case you need it. Anything else I can tell or give you?"

Phil wishes fleetingly that he could say aloud what he's thinking: I have wrangled agents, soldiers, monsters, gods, and Tony Stark; I can undoubtedly handle Clint Barton's dog. Instead he assures her that everything is in order and wishes her and her family a pleasant trip.

Outside Simone's apartment, Phil hoists his bags and looks down at the dog he's been entrusted. Lucky stares back up at him with one skeptical eye.

He lets himself into Barton's apartment and drops his bags unceremoniously on the floor, looking around, taking the place in. It lacks the cluttered, cozy feel of Simone's apartment. Lucky strains against his leash, so Phil unclips it from his collar; once loose, he heads straight for the far corner of the room. The dog turns several times before lying down in front of a bookcase, his head on his front paws. He watches Phil warily.

"I wouldn't trust me either," Phil says, because apparently he is the kind of person who speaks aloud to animals. The dog just watches as Phil rifles half-heartedly through Barton's drawers and cabinets. He's not looking for anything in particular; he finds a mismatched set of plates and cutlery, three different opened boxes of cereal, most of a stale loaf of bread, a nearly-empty jar of coffee out on the counter near an obviously well-used coffee pot, a nearly-empty jug of spoiled milk, and a stack of frozen pizzas. The trash can is mostly empty--a few used coffee filters, a spent roll of tape, another cereal box, and several newspapers from before the team had shipped out. The living room is small, but that's only to be expected in New York. There's a sofa that could only fit three people if they were all friends, a set of book shelves, and a fancy TV and sound system. The room's only decoration is a longbow hung on the wall above the sofa. There's also a small loft, presumably where Barton's bedroom is. Phil doesn't really bother poking around the bedroom, just fishes around in the adjoining closet to see if he can find the spare set of sheets Ms. Bishop had mentioned; when he does, he neatly lays them out on the kitchen island for later. He walks the dog--it is an incredibly well-behaved dog, which cannot be Barton's doing--and leaves his things by the sofa while he goes back to SHIELD HQ for the evening. They've got a team in the field, a team he helped assemble, and he really ought to be there for them.

He heads back to Brooklyn late, this time paying more attention to the closed-up storefronts, the flickering streetlights, the somehow-ominous van parked across the street, exactly where it was earlier. At least the dog is pleased to see him, its tail thumping gently against the floor as Phil enters the apartment. This is probably because Phil proceeds to fill Lucky's dish, but Phil is tired enough not to care why. He spreads the sheets across Barton's slightly-too-short sofa, glad he found them earlier, and drops off to sleep almost immediately.

He wakes in the morning as daylight begins to filter into the apartment. There is a strange weight on his chest; when he opens his eyes, it turns out to be Lucky's head, one eye staring expectantly at him. Oh, right. He slips into the casual clothes from his overnight bag and takes the dog out. He stands outside the building door in the chill morning air for several minutes and nods at Barton's neighbors as they come out to start their days.

Back inside, Phil eats a bowl of dry cereal and settles back onto the sofa. He doesn't have to be back at HQ for another couple hours, and he doesn't like to pass up an opportunity to see what's on an Avenger's DVR. Barton's is unsurprising: he has most of the last season of Dog Cops (but really, who doesn't), several unwatched episodes of How I Met Your Mother, and something called "Sharktopus," recorded on three separate occasions. Phil rolls his eyes and picks up the book that lives in his overnight bag.

As the days draw on and the team in Latveria hasn't yet returned, Phil finds himself growing to really like this: Barton's place, Barton's neighbors, Barton's dog. 

The longer he stays in the apartment, the more the edges seem to wear off of the "not quite lived in" feeling. After the second day, he even replaces some of the spoiled food in the fridge and makes an omelet for breakfast instead of getting a bagel on the way in to HQ. Barton's neighbors are also great--or at least the goodwill Barton has engendered as a neighbor and a landlord transfers well, because everyone smiles at him when they see him out with Lucky and then every time after that, in elevators and hallways and once even on the subway. He _even_ gets an invite to a rooftop cookout happening on the third evening. He has to turn the invitation down because of the odd hours he's keeping with the team overseas, but he appreciates the invitation all the same. And Barton's dog, well, Lucky is impeccably behaved and always glad to see him. It's a new sensation for Phil; outside of work, the only thing that depends on him is a small potted cactus. Granted, there is often a lot that depends on him at work, but it's hardly the same. He spends so much time on his work that a particularly-hardy cactus is all that he can in good conscience support, never mind anything or anyone that might form a real relationship with him. 

He hasn't thought about it much, but he and the cactus lead a pretty lonely life. He could get used to a friendly face greeting him every time he comes home. He's going to miss it when Barton gets back.

It's still dark outside when Phil awakens to the sound of someone fumbling with the door. It's the fourth night he's spent at Barton's apartment, and the team isn't expected back until tomorrow (well, later today). Surely somebody would have called him if they'd returned early. He rolls off the sofa and retrieves his loaded handgun from his overnight bag, then takes up a crouched position slightly shielded by behind the end of the sofa farther from the door. Lucky doesn't seem worried, padding up to the door and sitting expectantly beside it. Some guard dog _he_ is.

In quick succession, the door opens, the lights come on, and Phil stands up from his hiding place, aiming his gun at the doorway. "Don't move," he says to the intruder. His eyes are still adjusting to the brightness.

"Coulson?" the man at the door says, sounding disbelieving and a little annoyed.

"Barton?" Phil is equally confused. "What are you doing here?"

"Pretty sure this is my apartment," Barton shoots back. "What are you doing in my apartment?"

"Emergency dog-sitting," Phil replies. He's sure he's said things that have sounded less believable than that in his lifetime, but he would be hard-pressed to think of one. "Kate texted me."

Barton runs a hand tiredly over his face. "Of course she did. I knew that emergency contacts list was a bad idea."

"Why am I even on your emergency contact list?" Phil asks, honestly a little curious.

Barton's shoulders shoot up in a defensive shrug and his expression sort of folds in on itself, turning into a guarded grimace. "Figured SHIELD probably would still have my back if I needed it."

That doesn't explain Phil's cell number, but he doesn't push it. "I didn't expect the team back this early," he says instead. He's stowed his handgun back in his overnight bag and is gathering the sheets up off the sofa. When they are folded, he sits down.

Barton has dropped his duffel bag on the floor and is moving things around on the kitchen counter, seemingly at random. "It wasn't planned," Barton admits. "You'll get the full debrief back at SHIELD, I'm sure, but the gist of it is that for a smart guy, Tony Stark can be really dumb sometimes."

Phil sighs. It's hardly a surprise, but that doesn't keep it from being a little disappointing. You'd think that Stark would be better at working as part of a team by now.

Barton's voice cuts through his thoughts. "Did he give you any trouble?" There is a moment where Phil thinks Barton is asking about Stark--he doesn't know where to even _begin_ answering _that_ question--and then he realizes Barton means the dog.

Phil shakes his head. "No trouble at all. Lucky has been great. You've got a great dog."

The pause that follows is a beat or two too long, interrupted only by the gentle thumping of Lucky's tail against the floor. "I should probably get back," Phil says after one more moment too long. "It sounds like the mission post-mortem is going to be a nightmare." He starts to rise from the sofa, intending to ask Barton if he can clean up here before going in, but at his movement, Lucky bounds across the room and pretty much tackles him back down onto the sofa.

Barton half-heartedly reprimands the dog, not bothering to hide his smile. "Look, if they needed you back right away, they would have called, right? Did they?" Phil admits that his phone has been oddly silent, and Barton continues, "Stick around. You want some Thai food? I'm buying." He waves a takeout menu at Phil from across the room.

"It's almost 3 AM," Phil protests.

"There's a place nearby with 24-hour delivery. Didn't have time to eat dinner during that extraction, so I'm starving."

Phil doesn't want to shift the dog off his lap, so he looks at Barton helplessly until the other man brings the menu over. They place the order, and then Barton takes a careful seat next to him on the sofa. "So, I have to ask, because it's been bugging me for days--" Phil begins, and Barton shifts uncomfortably beside him, "Is Sharktopus as bad as it seems like it should be?"

Barton laughs so loudly that he startles the dog.

The food arrives almost astonishingly quickly, and once it has, they turn on Sharktopus with the volume down and the captions on so as not to annoy the neighbors. Barton drifts off to sleep partway through, and Phil must as well, because the next thing he is aware of is a dark-haired young woman in the apartment doorway, clearing her throat obviously. Lucky is curled sleepily in front of the sofa, and Barton has somehow shifted in his sleep to lean up against Phil in an overly-familiar way. Phil's a little surprised it hadn't woken him up, a little surprised by how far off his guard it had put him that he didn't even hear the woman come in.

"Kate," Barton begins, extricating himself from Phil and the sofa and tripping slightly over the dog. He straightens up, then begins again. "Okay, this looks bad--"

*****

_Just once,_ Clint thinks to himself, _it'd be great for things to look great._

*

He's a little busy when Simone calls, taking fire and not really in any position to answer his phone. When he gets back to the team base, he listens to his voicemail, makes a face, and calls Kate.

"Hey," he says into the phone, as quietly as he can. He's sequestered himself into a back corner of a storage room, as far away as he can be from his teammates and SHIELD's monitoring equipment. "Simone's gotta bail on dog-sitting. Can you cover?"

There is a long pause that Clint doesn't like, then Kate replies, "I told you I'm out of town too, right?"--and yeah, of course she did, he vaguely remembers that now and starts to apologize when she cuts him off. "No, it's okay, you're on Avenger business. I'll handle it." He's not sure what "handling it" means exactly, but he doesn't give it much thought. There are more important things to worry about.

After the mission's abrupt end, the ensuing evac, and deliberately avoiding SHIELD's debrief, Clint heads home. He is stupid tired and sore as all get-out. He is going to sleep like the dead tonight. At least, that's the plan, right up until the point where he enters his apartment and Phil Coulson almost shoots him.

"Coulson?" he asks, trying to process this information, instinctively a little annoyed that his bow isn't easier to get at when somebody's got a weapon aimed at him.

"Barton?" Coulson says, sounding confused. Guess nobody had told him about the emergency extraction. That in itself is surprising. "What are you doing here?"

*

Coulson excuses himself to the bathroom, to clean up and get ready for what's sure to be a painful day of shouting and blame back at SHIELD HQ, and Clint goes to make coffee. He avoids looking at Kate directly; he can see her out of the corner of his eye, seated on a stool at the counter with her arms folded.

"So," she says when it becomes obvious that he's not going to start this talk. She draws the word out to an almost uncomfortable length. "Who's your friend?"

"Phil Coulson," he replies, still not looking at her.

"Oh, the dog-sitter?" Kate sounds surprised, and Clint just nods in return. The coffee has started to percolate noisily. "He's--where do you know him from?"

Clint sighs. "Work." He finally turns to face Kate. 

She raises an eyebrow at him. "That guy's an Avenger?" She can't keep the disbelief from her voice. "He doesn't _look_ like a superhero."

"C'mon, Hawkeye," Clint says to her, giving her a look. "Do _I_ look like a superhero? Do _you_?"

"Hell yeah, _I_ do," Kate shoots back, but she looks sorry she asked the question.

"No, you're right though, he's a SHIELD agent," Clint says, shrugging off her glare.

Kate makes a thoughtful noise. "Well, he's cute, in that sort of 'stoic old-guy' way." She says this as if it's a peace offering, which really doesn't make him feel better.

Clint snorts. "If that's what you're into, I guess." He tries his hardest to ignore Kate's pointed stare. No, this does not look good at all. He continues to ignore Kate as she wonders aloud, mostly to herself, about how Coulson had managed to get so comfortable at Clint's place that his razor-sharp SHIELD reflexes didn't have him up and alert the moment her key made noise in the lock this morning. The coffee is almost finished. Clint gets a pair of mugs out of the kitchen cabinets; pauses; fishes out one more.


End file.
